FRIDAY was not only the first of February, it was also the first time the Aisling Irish Community Center in Yonkers held a special ceremony to honor Millicent Beckford, the Jamaican lady who spent nine years looking after 100-year-old Co. Kerry native Hannah Murphy who passed away in January.Beckford, 60, was invited up to the center on Friday to accept a caregiver of the year award, and meet with the senior group who gathers there weekly. "I had no idea they were going to surprise me like this," said a teary eyed Beckford after she was presented with a plaque announcing her award.Irish Consul General Niall Burgess made a special trip to Yonkers to meet with Beckford and congratulate her on the years of dedication and love she had shown Murphy while she was alive. "It is such a pleasure and an honor to meet you Millie. You are a wonderful person to do such outstanding work," said Burgess.Orla Kelleher, executive director of the Aisling Irish Community Center, thought of the idea of doing something special for Beckford when Hannah passed away. "If only the world had more Millie's," said Kelleher. "We all agreed that it was a good idea to award Millie with caregiver of the year. What she did for an Irish woman will never be forgotten."Beckford, who admits she is lonely since the passing of her dear friend, told the Irish Voice back in October, "If someone does good for me then I do good for them."Twenty-five years ago Beckford was in Wolver-hampton in England visiting her parents. Her son Rudy, who was 17 at the time, lost his hearing. It was Murphy, Beckford's neighbor of four years, who rushed him to the hospital. "I said to myself then that until the day she dies or the day I close my eyes I will look after Murphy," And Beckford did just that.When her then 91-year-old Irish neighbor, the only white woman left living in the apartment building in Creston Avenue in the Bronx, needed full time care, Beckford took it upon herself to provide it, and in her own home. For the next nine years, Millie put her life on hold to feed, dress, and love the lady she affectionately called Murphy every single day.Beckford, who is currently looking for day work as a homecare giver, plans to travel home to Jamaica to see her family now that she has lots of free time on her hands. "It's been years and years since I've been back so I'm now going to take three weeks there and enjoy myself," Beckford told the Irish Voice on Friday. And that's not all. Beckford has promised Murphy's niece Joan O'Sullivan from Cork that she will make a trip to Ireland to see where her "wonderful friend came from." "Joan and her family are going to take me all over Ireland. I can't wait to see it. I've heard so much beautiful things about the country, and now finally I'll get to visit it," she said, joking that she may never come back."In our eyes she is also an honorary Irish woman of the year too," said Kelleher.